Can you help an out of work tour guide?

I was working as a tour guide in Sydney until the planes stopped flying. If you are enjoying my blog posts and can afford to toss a bit of coin into my virtual hat – the cost of a coffee or beer, say – that would be a huge help. I hope you are faring as well as can be expected wherever you are.

I am ambivalent about 1980s nostalgia gigs. If everyone is having fun, where’s the harm? Right? But revisiting the scenes of youth, in middle age, with the bands you loved when you were a teenager and they were in their 20s and 30s … there’s something weird and a little unsettling about it. It invites melancholy and a sense of mortality. When last I saw Tom play these songs I was 18 and he was 33, now I’m 46 and he’s 61.

About five years ago Tom and I spent an afternoon walking around Sydney and catching up. He was then certain he’d never do this – never play these songs again. But things change – and he is. So here I am – in a field in Southampton surrounded by sun-burnt middle-aged Englishmen and women.

Every time I look at this picture it makes me laugh.

Tom’s manager, David I think it is, meets me. He’s a thin, pale man dressed for sailing to South America in a linen suit and panama hat. He asks if I’m Lisa – close enough, he escorts me into the back stage area. And then there’s Tom – with his funny, lovely smile and fabulous hair. Looking every bit as expected.

In the tent Tom introduces me to his band (Angie, Emily and Amanda), the manager’s fiancée, and the lighting guy’s girlfriend, Donna. We talk of my journey and Couchsurfing, of the gigs they’ve been playing, and of how I know Tom. He says I’ve probably seen more Thompson Twins shows than anyone else there – I started to try and count them but couldn’t – it’d be in the 20s.

Most of those I worked. I was an intern on their final US tour. I skipped my high school graduation ceremony so I could be in Arizona in time for the start of the tour. It was a crazy wonderful month or so.

Tom is amazed at my memory of those times but I was 18 and on tour with the Thompson Twins so it was all very memorable for me. “Really?” he asks, “You did the laundry? And bought me socks?” Yes, Tom, yes I did.

It was nice reminiscing with him in this way. Then a particularly weird thing happened.

Before I met the Thompson Twins I was member of their fan club. Back in the day this meant posting away to a PO box in London, sending a money order for a few Pound Sterling – in return I got a membership card, a subscription to a newsletter, exclusive news and things like that. Their fan club was run by a formidable woman named Viv.

She and her daughter came to California for a couple of the gigs there. When she found I was working on the tour she lost her mind. She confronted Tom and Alannah about it. She thought if they were going to have a fan on tour it should be herself or her daughter or there should have been a contest. She’s yelling at them in the dressing room 20 minutes before they go on.

I was worried not so much that her argument would win out but that her craziness would taint my presence on the tour, that it would seem like too much of a pain in the arse. I still remember the anxiety I felt hearing her raging down the corridor.

In the end it was a positive turning point for me. I’d been working diligently at all I was asked to do and tried to be helpful wherever I could. My fellow worker-bees saw me as part of the team, and then more so, really, in comparison with the weird woman. They were all very supportive and told me not to worry about her.

But my original reaction had stayed with me. So when Tom turned to me and asked if I’d met her, my blood ran cold for just a second … things from one’s teenaged years live on and echo at a particular resonance.

She had arrived and wanted to come say hello to him. He asked me to go help David find her. When we were all standing together some minutes later Tom asked her if she remembered me, she said she didn’t – and maybe that’s so.

Meanwhile a litany of 1980s pop musicians were playing their sets and I was missing all of them in favour of the genial social scene in the tent. When the second last act, Kim Wilde, went on Tom and his band went to get ready. Donna and I joined the crowd in front of the stage.

And then they came on. And it was wonderful. The lights and visuals were fantastic. It was, yeah – so, so nice. And when they finished with ‘Hold Me Now’ and everyone sang along, it really was kind of special and heart-warming.

The set was great – a short-sharp attack on some of their best songs, played well and sung well: In the Name of Love, You Take Me Up, Lies, Sister of Mercy, Lay Your Hands on Me, Love on Your Side, If You Were Here, Doctor! Doctor! and Hold Me Now.

It was as much fun as I had hoped and not nearly as morose as I had feared.

The set was great.Older … better than the alternative. Always nice to see Tom.

Sunday 12 July

Having slept in I took a stupidly expensive train to Weymouth – £24.70 for a ride of less than two hours. There, the start of my ride, was in a windblown spray of rain. Despite that, and the low clouds obscuring what are meant to be fantastic coastal views, it is beautiful and oh, so English. There are rolling hills with paddocks of sheep and there are dog walkers in tweed and wellies. I stop at a tea room in Abbottsbury – a village of thatch-roofs and stone-houses – to gorge on Dorset apple cake served with clotted cream and a nice pot of tea.

It was so very good.

If you are familiar with the show Broadchurch then you’ll know West Bay. The nearly-gothic cliffs which loom over the main beach are, in themselves, a star of the show and a star for West Bay. I roll around town laughing at the English-summer and have some disappointing chips.

Amazing spot.

My Warmshowers hosts for the night are in Bridport, up the hill from West Bay. They must get a fair few visitors because as I’m riding into their subdivision, even further uphill, a woman in a passing car encourages me on with a: “You’re nearly there!”

Malcolm and Jude are truly lovely hosts. They are 60-ish and have a beautiful home and garden – rambling and productive. They are passionate people, chatty and interesting. Jude is a bit of a pagan and Malcolm, I think, indulges her more than he joins. They are kind and welcoming and easy to get on with.

Malcolm and Jude’s gorgeous garden

After dinner, Malcolm offers to run me around in his car to the Broadchurch murder house and back through West Bay for the night time vibe.

Getting to the house involves driving narrow, hedged, winding lanes illuminated only by his head lights. We arrive in a gravelled car park and there it is, at the top of a little rise. It’s spooky, evocative, and really fun to see.

Taken in available light at 10:30 pm – appropriately creepy.

Monday 13 July

I worked all morning and then peddled away after lunch. Malcolm made this amazing cheese toastie – toasted and buttered home baked brown sourdough covered with a mix of grated cheddar and hard goats’ cheese, put under the grill and served with Vegemite!

The ride today was good: foggy and windy, but dry and so so green. The height of the hedges bordering the road make passing traffic a bit of an issue but they also block the wind. I saw a pair of fellow cycle tourists and realised I miss the busyness of Italy and even France. I’ve seen almost no other tourers here and not many riders in general.

England … so very English.

I roll into Dorchester just after the tourist office closes – I can see them still in there but the door is locked and they avoid seeing me. I wander the high street eyeing three or four hotels and then pick one. I could have been more discerning but I’ve been riding all afternoon and I just want a home for the night. It’s a gobsmacking £89 – which is like A$180 – but I’ve not paid for accommodation the past nine nights, so averaged over 10 that’s $18 per night. That’s how I’m going to think of it anyway.

I’ve been on the road for 50 days now and I’m feeling strong and content. Things are good. I’m enjoying the adventure, the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been. Finding the right balances – around how to spend my time and my money – continue to be a bit of a challenge but I think I’m shifting my expectations toward what can be and away from some ideas of what should be.